Cooper Tire promotes Phil Kortokrax to new role; appoints Christopher Ball as President of NATO

Mar 5, 2018 |

Phil Kortokrax has been promoted to the position of Senior Vice President, Global Operations & Procurement at Cooper Tire.

Kortokrax, who has been with Cooper for nearly three decades, is responsible for overseeing the company’s global manufacturing operations, which includes eight tyre manufacturing plants on three continents, as well as global procurement. He is also responsible for Cooper’s emerging global original equipment (OE) and worldwide truck and bus radial (TBR) tyre businesses.

“During his long tenure with Cooper, Phil has served in many different functional areas within the company and brings deep expertise to his new role. With this promotion, he returns to lead manufacturing, but this time on a global scale in recognition of the importance of our worldwide production footprint. We look forward to his contributions as we work to continuously improve product quality, maintain our focus on safety, and continue to enhance efficiencies at our plants around the world,” the company CEO Brad Hughes said.

The company also appointed Christopher Ball as Senior Vice President of Cooper Tire & President of North America Tire Operations (NATO) effective March 19.

Ball assumes the new role following the promotion of Phil Kortokrax to the position of Senior Vice President, Global Operations & Procurement.

Reporting to Hughes, Ball will be responsible for formulating and driving execution of strategic plans to grow Cooper’s business within the dealer-distributor network as well as in new sales channels. He will closely partner with the company’s operations and technical teams in the U.S., which focus on the design and manufacture of quality tires in safe and sustainable facilities, including four manufacturing plants, as well as supply chain operations.

“We are pleased to welcome Chris to our executive leadership team,” said Hughes. “He is a talented global executive with significant commercial experience, and the energy and demonstrated leadership capabilities to help us achieve our strategic growth objectives.”

Ball, prior to Cooper Tire, has worked with Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid and Jenn-Air.